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The supportive factors, exercises, and games cited above remain valid for maintaining cognitive fitness as we grow older, with certain caveats.
Just as with any other population, it is crucial to find a challenge for older adults that is “just right” so that the individual’s abilities are stimulated but not overwhelmed (Proffitt, 2016).
For example, a verbal memory task for an older person with encroaching memory problems might be modified to include a
6-item list of words to recall, instead of a 12-item list. Prompts and cues can spur memory and provide the individual with an experience of success.
If a cognitive task is too easy, it will not serve to strengthen a person’s abilities. If it is too hard, you risk overwhelming the person. This is especially true of people with encroaching Alzheimer’s disease, the most common dementing condition in the elderly (Desai & Grossberg, 2001).
Finding the right cognitive challenge for such individuals allows them to exercise their faculties and experience some success, rather than becoming overwhelmed and frustrated.
Testing Cognitive Fitness: 5 Health Assessments
Neuropsychological testing is one way to assess cognitive health. However, this option can be costly and labor intensive.
In many cases, basic screening will suffice for an understanding of a given individual’s cognitive health status (Wasserman, Anderson, & Schwartz, 2016).
There are a number of excellent tools available to practitioners for basic screening and tracking of cognitive health. Many of these tools are designed for use with older people, but some are meant for use with younger people as well.
The Alzheimer’s Association website offers a cognitive assessment toolkit that includes the Medicare Annual Wellness
Visit algorithm for the assessment of cognition. This assessment uses patient history, observations by clinicians, and concerns raised by the patient, family, or caregivers.
The toolkit further includes three measures validated for use by professionals to assess and track a patient’s cognitive health. These measures include the General Practitioner Assessment of Cognition, Memory Impairment Screen, and the
Mini-Cog brief psychometric test.
Each of the above measures has the following advantages (Alzheimer’s Association, n.d.):
Can be given in five minutes or less
Equal or superior to the popular Mini-Mental State Exam for detecting dementia
Easily administered by non-physician health practitioners
Relatively free from educational, language, and cultural bias
For younger individuals, the Montreal Assessment of Cognition is a widely used instrument that has been validated for cognitive screening in people between 14 and 21 years old (Pike, Poulsen, & Woo, 2017).
Other basic screenings have been used to assess cognitive function in youth with conditions such as epilepsy (Asato,
Doss, & Plioplys, 2015) and brain injury (Rasquin et al., 2011).
In designing a cognitive health screening for any age group, it’s important to keep the following considerations in mind (adapted from Wasserman et al., 2016):
What level of training or expertise is required for the professionals giving the screening measure? A good screening should be one that can be administered with a minimum of training.
How often will the screening be used? At what time intervals?
Can the screening be billed to insurance?
What supplies – paper forms, computer programs, etc. – are needed to do the screening?
How will the screening results be communicated to examinees?
What decisions, if any, will be based on screening results? These might include referrals for more in-depth testing or cognitive enhancement or rehabilitation exercises.
31 Jul 2021 by
Scientifically reviewed by Melissa Madeson, Ph.D.
